Rev. C. DeWitt Bridgman.
The Baptist Church is the second of our Morristown churches in point of age. It was formed August 11, 1752. It was the Rev. Reune Runyon who was its pastor during those terrible days of the Revolution, when the scourge of small pox prevailed. All honor to him, for a "brave man and true", as says our historian, "loyal to his country as well as faithful to his God." He, with good Parson Johnes, upheld the arm of Washington and both offered, for their congregations, their church buildings, to shelter the poor, suffering soldiers, in their conflict with the dread disease. This constancy is all the more creditable when we consider that two of his immediate predecessors had already fallen victims to the disease, each, after a very short pastorate.
Rev. C. DeWitt Bridgman claims our attention as a writer. A friend writing of the Rev. Mr. Bridgman, at the present time, says: "The Baptist Church at Morristown was the first pastorate of the Rev. C. DeWitt Bridgman and I think was filled to the entire satisfaction of his friends and admirers who were and are many. His brilliant oratory and rare gifts as an eloquent, scholarly and polished speaker are well-known. A life-long friend of my family, I dwell on the lovable and loyal characteristics which have made him dear to us."
In a letter received by the author of this book, from the Rev. Mr. Bridgman, we find a little retrospect which is interesting. "I went to Morristown," he says, "immediately after graduating from the Baptist Theological Seminary, in Rochester, in 1857. The Baptist Church had a membership of about 130, all but five or six of them living outside the village. The House of Worship was small and uncomfortable, but at once was modernized and enlarged, and the congregation soon after grew to the measure of its capacity. As I was then but 22 years old, the success was in some measure due, I must believe, to the sympathy which the young men of the village had for one with their ardor. However that may be, the church, for the first time, seemed to be recognized as in touch with the life of the village, and it was the opening of a new chapter in the history of the church."
Rev. Mr. Bridgman made the oration at the 4th of July county celebration, soon after his arrival, in the First Presbyterian church. For two and a half years, he remained in this charge when he removed to Jamaica Plain, Mass. Subsequently he was pastor for fifteen years, of Emmanuel Baptist church, Albany, then for thirteen years of the Madison Avenue church in New York, when he entered the Episcopal church and became rector of "Holy Trinity," on Lenox avenue and 122nd St., New York, a position which he still occupies.
Articles from this writer's pen have appeared from time to time during this long career, in the religious press, besides occasional sermons of power and impressiveness.
In the letter above referred to, Mr. Bridgman says he remembers very pleasantly many acquaintances among those not connected with his church as well as those in its membership and "it will be a great pleasure," he adds, "to recall the old faces and the old days, over the pages of your book, when it shall have been issued."
Rev. G. D. Brewerton, who is already among our Poets, followed the Rev. Mr. Bridgman, in 1861, for a short pastorate.